Mr. Dickens never put a truer thought into any book, than he put at
the beginning of "Little Dorrit."
That, from over land and sea, from hundreds, thousands of miles
away, are coming the people with whom we are to have to do in our
lives; and that, "what is set to us to do to them, and what is set
for them to do to us, will all be done."
Not only from far places in this earth, over land and sea,--but from
out the eternities, before and after,--from which souls are born,
and into which they die,--all the lines of life are moving
continually which are to meet and join, and bend, and cross our own.
But it is only with a little piece of this world, as far as we can
see it in this short and simple story, that we have now to do.
Rosamond Holabird was coming down to Boston.
With all her pretty, fresh, delicate, high-lady ways, with her
beautiful looks, and her sweet readiness for true things and noble
living, she was coming, for a few days only,--the cooperative
housekeeping was going on at Westover, and she could not be spared
long,--right in among them here in Aspen Street, and Shubarton
Place, and Orchard Street, and Harrisburg Square, where Mrs.
Scherman lived whom she was going to stay with. But a few days may
be a great deal.
Rosamond Holabird was coming for far more than she knew. Among
other things she was coming to get a lesson; a lesson right on in a
course she was just now learning; a lesson of next things, and best
things, and real folks.
You see how it happened,--where the links were; Miss Craydocke, and
Sin Scherman, and Leslie Goldthwaite, were dear friends, made to
each other one summer among the mountains. Leslie had had Sin and
Miss Craydocke up at Z----, and Rosamond and Leslie were friends,
also.
Mrs. Frank Scherman had a pretty house in Harrisburg Square. She had
not much time for paying fashionable calls, or party-going, or
party-giving. As to the last, she did not think Frank had money
enough yet to "circumfuse," she said, in that way.
But she had six lovely little harlequin cups on a side-shelf in her
china closet, and six different-patterned breakfast plates, with
colored borders to match the cups; rose, and brown, and gray, and
vermilion, and green, and blue. These were all the real china she
had, and were for Frank and herself and the friends whom she made
welcome,--and who might come four at once,--for day and night. She
delighted in "little stays;" in girls who would go into the nursery
with her, and see Sinsie in her bath; or into the kitchen, and help
her mix up "little delectabilities to surprise Frank with;" only the
trouble had got to be now, that the surprise occurred when the
delectabilities did not. Frank had got demoralized, and expected
them. She rejoiced to have Miss Craydocke drop in of a morning and
come right up stairs, with her little petticoats and things to work
on; and she and Frank returned these visits in a social, cosy way,
after Sinsie was in her crib for the night. Frank's boots never went
on with a struggle for a walk down to Orchard Street; but they were
terribly impossible for Continuation Avenue.
So it had come about long ago, though I have not had a corner to
mention it in, that they "knew the Muffin Man," in an Aspen Street
sense; and were no strangers to the charm of Mrs. Ripwinkley's
"evenings." There was always an "evening" in the "Mile Hill House,"
as the little family and friendly coterie had come to call it.
Rosamond and Leslie had been down together for a week once, at the
Schermans; and this time Rosamond was coming alone. She had business
in Boston for a day or two, and had written to ask Asenath "if she
might." There were things to buy for Barbara, who was going to be
married in a "navy hurry," besides an especial matter that had
determined her just at this time to come.
And Asenath answered, "that the scarlet and gray, and green and blue
were pining and fading on the shelf; and four days would be the very
least to give them all a turn and treat them fairly; for such things
had their delicate susceptibilities, as Hans Andersen had taught us
to know, and might starve and suffer,--why not? being made of
protoplasm, same as anybody."
Rosamond's especial errand to the city was one that just a little
set her up, innocently, in her mind. She had not wholly got the
better,--when it interfered with no good-will or generous
dealing,--of a certain little instinctive reverence for imposing
outsides and grand ways of daily doing; and she was somewhat
complacent at the idea of having to go,--with kindly and needful
information,--to Madam Mucklegrand, in Spreadsplendid Park.
Madam Mucklegrand was a well-born Boston lady, who had gone to
Europe in her early youth, and married a Scottish gentleman with a
Sir before his name. Consequently, she was quite entitled to be
called "my lady;" and some people who liked the opportunity of
touching their republican tongues to the salt of European
dignitaries, addressed her so; but, for the most part, she assumed
and received simply the style of "Madam." A queen may be called
"Madam," you know. It covers an indefinite greatness. But when she
spoke of her late,--very long ago,--husband, she always named him as
"Sir Archibald."
Madam Mucklegrand's daughter wanted a wet-nurse for her little baby.
Up in Z----, there was a poor woman whose husband, a young brakeman
on the railroad, had been suddenly killed three months ago, before
her child was born. There was a sister here in Boston, who could
take care of it for her if she could go to be foster-mother to some
rich little baby, who was yet so poor as this--to need one. So
Rosamond Holabird, who was especially interested for Mrs. Jopson,
had written to Asenath, and had an advertisement put in the
"Transcript," referring to Mrs. Scherman for information. And the
Mucklegrand carriage had rolled up, the next day, to the house in
Harrisburg Square.
They wanted to see the woman, of course, and to hear all about
her,--more than Mrs. Scherman was quite able to tell; therefore when
she sent a little note up to Z----, by the evening mail, Rosamond
replied with her "Might she come?"
She brought Jane Jopson and the baby down with her, left them over
night at Mrs. Ginnever's, in Sheafe Street, and was to go for them
next morning and take them up to Spreadsplendid Park. She had sent a
graceful, polite little note to Madam Mucklegrand, dated "Westover,
Z----," and signed, "Rosamond Holabird," offering to do this, that
there might not be the danger of Jane's losing the chance in the
meanwhile.
It was certainly to accomplish the good deed that Rosamond cared
the most; but it was also certainly something to accomplish it in
that very high quarter. It lent a piquancy to the occasion.
She came down to breakfast very nicely and discriminatingly dressed,
with the elegant quietness of a lady who knew what was simply
appropriate to such an errand and the early hour, but who meant to
be recognized as the lady in every unmistakable touch; and there was
a carriage ordered for her at half past nine.
Sin Scherman was a cute little matron; she discerned the dash of
subdued importance in Rosamond's air; and she thought it very
likely, in the Boston nature of things, that it would get
wholesomely and civilly toned down.
Just at this moment, Rosamond, putting on her little straw bonnet
with real lace upon it, and her simple little narrow-bordered green
shawl, that was yet, as far as it went, veritable cashmere,--had a
consciousness, in a still, modest way, not only of her own personal
dignity as Rosamond Holabird, who was the same going to see Madam
Mucklegrand, or walking over to Madam Pennington's, and as much in
her place with one as the other; but of the dignity of Westover
itself, and Westover ladyhood, represented by her among the palaces
of Boston-Appendix to-day.
She was only twenty, this fair and pleasant Rosamond of ours, and
country simple, with all her native tact and grace; and she forgot,
or did not know how full of impressions a life like Madam
Mucklegrand's might be, and how very trifling and fleeting must be
any that she might chance to make.
She drove away down to the North End, and took Jane Jopson and her
baby in,--very clean and shiny, both of them,--and Jane
particularly nice in the little black crape bonnet that Rosamond
herself had made, and the plain black shawl that Mrs. Holabird had
given her.
She stood at the head of the high, broad steps, with her mind very
much made up in regard to her complete and well-bred self-possession,
and the manner of her quietly assured self-introduction. She had her
card all ready that should explain for her; and to the servant's
reply that Madam Mucklegrand was in, she responded by moving forward
with only enough of voluntary hesitation to allow him to indicate to
her the reception room, at the door of which she gave him the little
pasteboard, with,--
"Take that to her, if you please," and so sat down, very much as if
she had been in such places frequently before, which she never had.
One may be quite used to the fine, free essence of gentle living,
and never in all one's life have anything to do with such solid,
concrete expression of it as Rosamond saw here.
Very high, to begin with, the ceiled and paneled room was; reaching
up into space as if it had really been of no consequence to the
builders where they should put the cover on; and with no remotest
suggestion of any reserve for further superstructure upon the same
foundation.
Very dark, and polished, and deeply carved, and heavily ornamented
were its wainscotings, and frames, and cornices; out of the new look
of the streets, which it will take them yet a great while to
outgrow, she had stepped at once into a grand, and mellow, and
ancient stateliness.
There were dim old portraits on the walls, and paintings that hinted
at old mastership filled whole panels; and the tall, high-backed,
wonderfully wrought oaken chairs had heraldic devices in relief upon
their bars and corners; and there was a great, round mosaic table,
in soft, rich, dark colors, of most precious stones; these, in
turn, hidden with piles of rare engravings.
The floor was of dark woods, inlaid; and sumptuous rugs were put
about upon it for the feet, each one of which was wide enough to
call a carpet.
And nothing of it all was _new_; there was nothing in the room but
some plants in a jardiniere by the window, that seemed to have a bit
of yesterday's growth upon it.
A great, calm, marble face of Jove looked down from high up, out of
the shadows.
Underneath sat Rosamond Holabird, holding on to her identity and her
self-confidence.
Madam Mucklegrand came in plainly enough dressed,--in black; you
would not notice what she had on; but you would notice instantly the
consummate usedness to the world and the hardening into the mould
thereof that was set and furrowed upon eye and lip and brow.
She sailed down upon Rosamond like a frigate upon a graceful little
pinnace; and brought to within a pace or two of her, continuing to
stand an instant, as Rosamond rose, just long enough for the shadow
of a suggestion that it might not be altogether material that she
should be seated again at all.
But Rosamond made a movement backward to her chair, and laid her
hand upon its arm, and then Madam Mucklegrand decided to sit down.
"You called about the nurse, I conclude, Miss--Holabird?"
"Yes, ma'am; I thought you had some questions you wished to ask, and
that I had better come myself. I have her with me, in the carriage."
"Thank you," said Madam Mucklegrand, politely.
But it was rather a _de haut en bas_ politeness; she exercised it
also toward her footman.
Then followed inquiries about age, and health, and character.
Rosamond told all she knew, clearly and sufficiently, with some
little sympathetic touches that she could not help, in giving her
story.
Madam Mucklegrand met her nowhere, however, on any common ground;
she passed over all personal interest; instead of two women
befriending a third in her need, who in turn was to give life to a
little child waiting helplessly for some such ministry, it might
have been the leasing of a house, or the dealing about some
merchandise, that was between them.
Rosamond proposed, at last, to send Jane Jopson in.
Jane and her baby were had in, and had up-stairs; the physician and
attending nurse pronounced upon her; she was brought down again, to
go home and dispose of her child, and return. Rosamond, meanwhile,
had been sitting under the marble Jove.
There was nothing really rude in it; she was there on business; what
more could she expect? But then she knew all the time, that she too
was a lady, and was taking trouble to do a kind thing. It was not so
that Madam Mucklegrand would have been treated at Westover.
Rosamond was feeling pretty proud by the time Madam Mucklegrand came
down stairs.
"We have engaged the young woman: the doctor quite approves; she
will return without delay, I hope?"
As if Rosamond were somehow responsible all through.
"I have no doubt she will; good morning, madam."
"Good morning. I am, really, very much obliged. You have been of
great service."
Rosamond turned quietly round upon the threshold.
"That was what I was very anxious to be," she said, in her perfectly
sweet and musical voice,--"to the poor woman."
Italics would indicate too coarsely the impalpable emphasis she put
upon the last two words. But Mrs. Mucklegrand caught it.
Rosamond went away quite as sure of her own self-respect as ever,
but very considerably cured of Spreadsplendidism.
This was but one phase of it, she knew; there are real folks, also,
in Spreadsplendid Park; they are a good deal covered up, there, to
be sure; but they can't help that. It is what always happens to
somebody when Pyramids are built. Madam Mucklegrand herself was,
perhaps, only a good deal covered up.
How lovely it was to go down into Orchard Street after that, and
take tea with Miss Craydocke! How human and true it seemed,--the
friendliness that shone and breathed there, among them all. How
kingdom-of-heaven-like the air was, and into what pleasantness of
speech it was born!
And then Hazel Ripwinkley came over, like a little spirit from
another blessed society, to tell that "the picture-book things were
all ready, and that it would take everybody to help."
That was Rosamond's first glimpse of Witch Hazel, who found her out
instantly,--the real, Holabirdy part of her,--and set her down at
once among her "folks."
It was bright and cheery in Mrs. Ripwinkley's parlor; you could
hardly tell whence the cheeriness radiated, either.
The bright German lamp was cheery, in the middle of the round table;
the table was cheery, covered with glossy linen cut into large,
square book-sheets laid in piles, and with gay pictures of all
kinds, brightly colored; and the scissors,--or scissorses,--there
were ever so many shining pairs of them,--and the little mucilage
bottles, and the very scrap-baskets,--all looked cozy and
comfortable, and as if people were going to have a real good time
among them, somehow.
And the somehow was in making great beautiful, everlasting
picture-books for the little orphans in Miss Craydocke's Home,--the
Home, that is, out of several blessed and similar ones that she was
especially interested in, and where Hazel and Diana had been with
her until they knew all the little waifs by sight and name and
heart, and had their especial chosen property among them, as they
used to have among the chickens and the little yellow ducks at
Homesworth Farm.
Mrs. Ripwinkley was cheery; it might be a question whether all the
light did not come from her first, in some way, and perhaps it did;
but then Hazel was luminous, and she fluttered about with quick,
happy motions, till like a little glancing taper she had shone upon
and lit up everybody and everything; and Dorris was sunny with clear
content, and Kenneth was blithe, and Desire was scintillant, as she
always was either with snaps or smiles; and here came in beaming
Miss Craydocke, and gay Asenath and her handsome husband; and our
Rosa Mundi; there,--how can you tell? It was all round; and it was
more every minute.
There were cutters and pasters and stitchers and binders and every
part was beautiful work, and nobody could tell which was
pleasantest. Cutting out was nice, of course; who doesn't like
cutting out pictures? Some were done beforehand, but there were as
many left as there would be time for. And pasting, on the fine,
smooth linen, making it glow out with charming groups and tints of
flowers and birds and children in gay clothes,--that was
delightful; and the stitchers had the pleasure of combining and
arranging it all; and the binders,--Mrs. Ripwinkley and Miss
Craydocke,--finished all off with the pretty ribbons and the gray
covers, and theirs being the completing touch, thought _they_ had
the best of it.
"But I don't think finishing is best, mother," said Hazel, who was
diligently snipping in and out around rose leaves or baby faces, as
it happened. "I think beginning is always beautiful. I never want to
end off,--anything nice, I mean."
"Well, we don't end off this," said Diana. "There's the giving,
next."
"And then their little laughs and Oo's," said Hazel.
"And their delight day after day; and the comfort of them in their
little sicknesses," said Miss Craydocke.
"And the stories that have got to be told about every picture," said
Dorris.
"No; nothing really nice does end; it goes on and on," said Mrs.
Ripwinkley.
"Of course!" said Hazel, triumphantly, turning on the Drummond light
of her child-faith. "We're forever and ever people, you know!"
"Please paste some more flowers, Mr. Kincaid," said Rosamond, who
sat next him, stitching. "I want to make an all-flower book of this.
No,--not roses; I've a whole page already; this great white lily, I
think. That's beautiful!"
"Wouldn't it do to put in this laurel bush next, with the bird's
nest in it?"
"O, those lovely pink and white laurels! Yes. Where did you get such
pictures, Miss Hazel?"
"O, everybody gave them to us, all summer, ever since we began. Mrs.
Geoffrey gave those flowers; and mother painted some. She did that
laurel. But don't call me Miss Hazel, please; it seems to send me
off into a corner."
Rosamond answered by a little irresistible caress; leaning her head
down to Hazel, on her other side, until her cheek touched the
child's bright curls, quickly and softly. There was magnetism
between those two.
Ah, the magnetism ran round!
"For a child's picture-book, Mrs. Ripwinkley?" said Mrs. Scherman,
reaching over for the laurel picture. "Aren't these almost
too exquisite? They would like a big scarlet poppy just as
well,--perhaps better. Or a clump of cat-o'-nine-tails," she added,
whimsically.
"There _is_ a clump of cat-o'-nine-tails," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "I
remember how I used to delight in them as a child,--the real ones."
"Pictures are to _tell_ things," said Desire, in her brief way.
"These little city refugees _must_ see them, somehow," said
Rosamond, gently. "I understand. They will never get up on the
mountains, maybe, where the laurels grow, or into the shady swamps
among the flags and the cat-o'-nine-tails. You have _picked out_
pictures to give them, Mrs. Ripwinkley."
Kenneth Kincaid's scissors stopped a moment, as he looked at
Rosamond, pausing also over the placing of her leaves.
Desire saw that from the other side; she saw how beautiful and
gracious this girl was--this Rosamond Holabird; and there was a
strange little twinge in her heart, as she felt, suddenly, that let
there be ever so much that was true and kindly, or even tender, in
her, it could never come up in her eyes or play upon her lips like
that she could never say it out sweetly and in due place everything
was a spasm with her; and nobody would ever look at her just as
Kenneth Kincaid looked at Rosamond then.
She said to herself, with her harsh, unsparing honesty, that it must
be a "hitch inside;" a cramp or an awkwardness born in her, that set
her eyes, peering and sharp, so near together, and put that knot
into her brows instead of their widening placidly, like Rosamond's,
and made her jerky in her speech. It was no use; she couldn't look
and behave, because she couldn't _be_; she must just go boggling and
kinking on, and--losing everything, she supposed.
The smiles went down, under a swift, bitter little cloud, and the
hard twist came into her face with the inward pinching she was
giving herself; and all at once there crackled out one of her sharp,
strange questions; for it was true that she could not do otherwise;
everything was sudden and crepitant with her.
"Why need all the good be done up in batches, I wonder? Why can't it
be spread round, a little more even? There must have been a good
deal left out somewhere, to make it come in a heap, so, upon you,
Miss Craydocke!"
Hazel looked up.
"I know what Desire means," she said. "It seemed just so to me,
_one_ way. Why oughtn't there to be _little_ homes, done-by-hand
homes, for all these little children, instead of--well--machining
them all up together?"
And Hazel laughed at her own conceit.
"It's nice; but then--it isn't just the way. If we were all brought
up like that we shouldn't know, you see!"
"You wouldn't want to be brought up in a platoon, Hazel?" said
Kenneth Kincaid. "No; neither should I."
"I think it was better," said Hazel, "to have my turn of being a
little child, all to myself; _the_ little child, I mean, with the
rest of the folks bigger. To make much of me, you know. I shouldn't
want to have missed that. I shouldn't like to be _loved_ in a
platoon."
"Nobody is meant to be," said Miss Craydocke.
"Then why--" began Asenath Scherman, and stopped.
"Why what, dear?"
"Revelations," replied Sin, laconically. "There are loads of people
there, all dressed alike, you know; and--well--it's platoony, I
think, rather! And down here, such a world-full; and the sky--full
of worlds. There doesn't seem to be much notion of one at a time, in
the general plan of things."
"Ah, but we've got the key to all that," said Miss Craydocke. "'The
very hairs of your head are all numbered.' It may be impossible with
us, you know, but not with Him."
"Miss Hapsie! you always did put me down, just when I thought I was
smart," said Sin Scherman.
Asenath loved to say "Miss Hapsie," now and then, to her friend,
ever since she had found out what she called her "squee little
name."
"But the little children, Miss Craydocke," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "It
seems to me Desire has got a right thought about it."
Mrs. Ripwinkley and Hazel always struck the same note. The same
delicate instinct moved them both. Hazel "knew what Desire meant;"
her mother did not let it be lost sight of that it was Desire who
had led the way in this thought of the children; so that the abrupt
beginning--the little flash out of the cloud--was quite forgotten
presently, in the tone of hearty understanding and genuine interest
with which the talk went on; and it was as if all that was generous
and mindfully suggestive in it had first and truly come from her.
They unfolded herself for her--these friendly ones--as she could not
do; out of her bluntness grew a graciousness that lay softly over
it; the cloud itself melted away and floated off; and Desire began
to sparkle again more lambently. For she was not one of the kind to
be meanly or enviously "put out."
"It seemed to me there must be a great many spare little corners
somewhere, for all these spare little children," she said, "and
that, lumped up together so, there was something they did not get."
"That is precisely the thing," said Miss Craydocke, emphatically. "I
wonder, sometimes," she went on, tenderly, "if whenever God makes a
little empty place in a home, it isn't really on purpose that it
might be filled with one of these,--if people only thought."
"Miss Craydocke," said Hazel, "how did you begin your beehive?"
"I!" said the good lady. "I didn't. It began itself."
"Well, then, how did you _let_ it begin?"
"Ah!"
The tone was admissive, and as if she had said, "_That_ is another
thing!" She could not contradict that she had let it be.
"I'll tell you a queer story," she said, "of what they say they used
to do, in old Roman Catholic times and places, when they wanted to
_keep up_ a beehive that was in any danger of dwindling or growing
unprofitable. I read it somewhere in a book of popular beliefs and
customs about bees and other interesting animals. An old woman once
went to her friend, and asked her what she did to make her hive so
gainful. And this was what the old wife said; it sounds rather
strange to us, but if there is anything irreverent in it, it is the
word and not the meaning; 'I go,' she said, 'to the priest, and get
a little round Godamighty, and put it in the hive, and then all goes
well; the bees thrive, and there is plenty of honey; they always
come, and stay, and work, when _that_ is there."
"A little round--something awful! what _did_ she mean?" asked Mrs.
Scherman.
"She meant a consecrated wafer,--the Sacrament. We don't need to put
the wafer in; but if we let _Him_ in, you see,--just say to Him it
is his house, to do with as He likes,--He takes the responsibility,
and brings in all the rest."
Nobody saw, under the knitting of Desire Ledwith's brows, and the
close setting of her eyes, the tenderness with which they suddenly
moistened, and the earnestness with which they gleamed. Nobody knew
how she thought to herself inwardly, in the same spasmodic fashion
that she used for speech,--
"They Mig up their parlors with upholstery, and put rose-colored
paper on their walls, and call them _their_ houses; and shut the
little round awfulness and goodness out! We've all been doing it!
And there's no place left for what might come in."
Mrs. Scherman broke the hush that followed what Miss Hapsie said.
Not hastily, or impertinently; but when it seemed as if it might be
a little hard to come down into the picture-books and the pleasant
easiness again.
"Let's make a Noah's Ark picture-book,--you and I," she said to
Desire. "Give us all your animals,--there's a whole Natural History
full over there, all painted with splendid daubs of colors; the
children did that, I know, when they _were_ children. Come; we'll
have everything in, from an elephant to a bumble-bee!"
"We did not mean to use those, Mrs. Scherman," said Desire. "We did
not think they were good enough. They are _so_ daubed up."
"They're perfectly beautiful. Exactly what the young ones will like.
Just divide round, and help. We'll wind up with the most wonderful
book of all; the book they'll all cry for, and that will have to be
given always, directly after the Castor Oil."
It took them more than an hour to do that, all working hard; and a
wonderful thing it was truly, when it was done. Mrs. Scherman and
Desire Ledwith directed all the putting together, and the grouping
was something astonishing.
There were men and women,--the Knowers, Sin called them; she said
that was what she always thought the old gentleman's name was, in
the days when she first heard of him, because he knew so much; and
in the backgrounds of the same sheets were their country cousins,
the orangs, and the little apes. Then came the elephants, and the
camels, and the whales; "for why shouldn't the fishes be put in,
since they must all have been swimming round sociably, if they
weren't inside; and why shouldn't the big people be all kept
together properly?"
There were happy families of dogs and cats and lions and snakes and
little humming-birds; and in the last part were all manner of bugs,
down to the little lady-bugs in blazes of red and gold, and the gray
fleas and mosquitoes which Sin improvised with pen and ink, in a
swarm at the end.
"And after that, I don't believe they wanted any more," she said;
and handed over the parts to Miss Craydocke to be tied together.
For this volume had had to be made in many folds, and Mrs.
Ripwinkley's blue ribbon would by no means stretch over the back.
And by that time it was eleven o'clock, and they had worked four
hours. They all jumped up in a great hurry then, and began to say
good-by.
"This must not be the last we are to have of you, Miss Holabird,"
said Mrs. Ripwinkley, laying Rosamond's shawl across her shoulders.
"Of course not," said Mrs Scherman, "when you are all coming to our
house to tea to-morrow night."
Rosamond bade the Ripwinkleys good-night with a most sweet
cordiality, and thanks for the pleasure she had had, and she told
Hazel and her mother that it was "neither beginning nor end, she
believed; for it seemed to her that she had only found a little new
piece of her world, and that Aspen Street led right out of Westover
in the invisible geography, she was sure."
"Come!" said Miss Craydocke, standing on the doorsteps. "It is all
invisible geography out here, pretty nearly; and we've all our
different ways to go, and only these two unhappy gentlemen to insist
on seeing everybody home."
So first the whole party went round with Miss Hapsie, and then
Kenneth and Dorris, who always went home with Desire, walked up
Hanley Street with the Schermans and Rosamond, and so across through
Dane Street to Shubarton Place.
But while they were on their way, Hazel Ripwinkley was saying to her
mother, up in her room, where they made sometimes such long
good-nights,--
"Mother! there were some little children taken away from you before
we came, you know? And now we've got this great big house, and
plenty of things, more than it takes for us."
"Well?"
"Don't you think it's expected that we should do something with the
corners? There's room for some real good little times for somebody.
I think we ought to begin a beehive."